Happy New Year everyone! Let me raise an inkpad in celebration of the new year, with good wishes for health and happiness in 2010.

To start the year, I wanted to share some gift items I made for the holidays. The wooden letter trays are decorated with clip art — some are color photocopied from a Design Originals ephemera booklet, some are printed from a CD that came with a Dover clip art book.

After sanding the wooden tray (bought at a local craft store) I painted a gold acrylic base coat. When that dried, I added a layer of crackle medium, let that dry, then painted with white acrylic. The images were then glued on the tray using a varnish medium (I don’t remember exactly what I used — it could have been Mod Podge or Liquid Laminate — I use both of those a lot.) I let that dry thoroughly (it’s very important to let each layer dry completely) and gave it another coat. For feet, I used double dice (found in a cheapie game set), gluing them with E6000.

Here’s another version. I don’t like this one as much (maybe it’s the darker color?). The base was painted a brownish color, then zapped with Krylon gold webbing.

Last, this desk top caddy (found at JoAnn’s) is made of craft board.

I painted the caddy with ivory acrylic paint, let it dry, then sponged with gold paint. I used real postage stamps as decorations, gluing and sealing with Modge Podge.

Have a wonderful new year!

Come back next week — my happy holidays gifts includes some nifty new Hero Arts stamps and I am anxious to play with them!

About

Roberta is a writer by trade, a crafter by accident. She was a contributing writer with The Rubber Stamper Magazine since its inception and now holds the same position at Crafts 'n Things. Read more about her in the About Me column.